Calculating win % with ties involved

Question for the old-timers who had to deal with ties back in the horse-and-buggy days:

How do you figure win percentages with ties? Do you throw the tie out when you figure it (i.e. 4-6-1 = .400) or award half a win for the tie (i.e. 4-6-1 = .409)?

I've wondered about this since eighth grade, but never had occasion to have it clarified until now.

 

A tie is half a win and half a loss.

4-6-1 = 4.5 / 11, which equals .409

 

I don't understand that.

Your win percentage should be the percentage of games that you WIN. Period.

 

But if you do that, you run into the possibility that you could have more wins than losses, yet still have a sub-.500 winning percentage because ties are being treated like losses

 

And? Win percentage means win percentage, not "not loss" percentage.

(Really, this is at the discretion of the league you are covering)

 

Actually, through the 1971 season, ties did not count toward win percentage. They were simply disregarded...kind of like walks toward a baseball player's batting average. Before the 1972 season, the NFL adopted the half a win, half a loss method and used it since. The old ties are still disregarded when factoring teams'/coaches'/players' win percentage...the new policy didn't count ties retroactively.

 

If you failed to WIN the games, then they shouldn't help your WINNING percentage.

Doing it half-and-half is fine, but don't identify the percentage as something it's not.

 

In the final standings, there has to be a way to separate a 5-4-1 team from a 5-5 team.

If "Pct." (which doesn't even use the term "winning") offends you, just think of it as a "did not lose" percentage.

 

IIRC, that's how the Eagles made the playoffs this season, wasn't it? The tie with the Bengals let them finish 9-6-1 and beat out somebody who finished 9-7.

 

You do RC

 

If you want to call it win percentage, then 4-6-1 actually translates to .364 ... said team has won four games out of the 11 it has played.

What I find most reporters (for leagues such as the NHL, that decide standings on total points, not wins) doing, is reporting the Pct. stat as a percentage of total points gained. It irks me when I see a 37-37-8 team referred to as a .500 club in the NHL because that third category actually represents overtime/shoot-out losses, thus the team is really a 37-45 team, but as a percentage of points earned it's not technically inaccurate.